Feedback Monitor Hanze Talents Leading the Change

Transcription

1 Feedback Monitor Hanze Talents Leading the Change Investing in the future by working together for a sustainable and competitive region

2 1 Executive summary In 2011 a project Hanze Talents leading the Change is started as a pilot project. Participants of this project are: - Sirius program - Lectorate Talent Development in Higher Education & Society - School of Computer Science - School of Sport Studies - International Business School - Hanze Institute of Technology - School of Health Care Studies - The Combination BV In short, the major goals of this project are: - To develop a process to define and develop an excellent professional profile; - To develop supporting systems, such as a tool that supports and accommodates the personal development of a potential excellent profile. One of the subprojects within this project is to develop a tool which gathers feedback and presents this feedback on such way it s support the personal development of the user. As mentioned, it s a pilot project. In the first phase it will be focused on supporting the development of students towards the profile of an excellent professional. And when it s successful it potential will be rolled out to teachers and regular education programs. Also, businesses are interested in the process and tool. Beside supporting the personal development of the users, data will be captured for research purpose. Research output will be used to improve the quality of honors programs, refining definitions of excellence over time and also get insights of significant factors which influences the development of excellent professionals during and after the study. Page 2 / 13

3 2 Problem statement Since 2009 the Hanze University of Applied Sciences (Hanze) participates in a national program Sirius. In this program participating universities develop challenging programs for excellent students (approx. 15% of the total students). One of the programs that is offered to the students is a Honors program. Within the Hanze the Honors program is designed to develop skills of the participated students based on an excellent professional profile. Characteristics of this profile will be defined in cooperation with business professionals related to the area of expertise of the Schools. A three years project is started to define an excellent professional profile for each related business sector, starting mid To define a national profile per business sector, business professionals from organizations across The Netherlands are asked to participate in this process. Based on the profiles, the curriculum of the honors program are defined. Main questions within the honors program (related to the tool) are: - How can we monitor the development of the defined skills? - Is it possible to accommodate a student in his or her personal development plans? During this project a close relationship is established with different kinds of organizations. Due to this relationship we discovered that the topic how to develop and support excellence is also a relevant issues for the main part of the organizations. Insights, methods and tools that are developed within this project are also relevant and usable for organizations. Some organizations already expressed their interest in the outcome and results of the program. At the moment, one of the issues in the first few years of a person s career path is that development programs for young excellent professionals within companies are rare, whereas excellent young professionals have a need to develop their selves. So, another question was raised: Is it possible to accommodate a student in his or her personal development plans, the first few years after his graduation? The above mentioned questions result in the following problem statement: Is it possible to develop a tool which: - gathers and reports feedback of the performance of a student; - monitors the development of a student based on a defined profile; - accommodates a student in his or her personal development plans, during and after his study; - gathers data that will be used to improve the quality of honors programs, validate the defined profiles; Page 3 / 13

4 - supports companies and governmental organizations in the development of their employees; - supports different kind of researches. Page 4 / 13

5 So a tool that is able to gather feedback of the performance of a student was requested, based on the following requirements: - Uses automatic generated feedback forms based on the profile and assignment; - Supports multiple profiles (per School at least one profile); - Students are able to define program and personal development goals; - The student is owner of his/her portfolio and progress - The tool is accessible via internet; - Data can be used for research; - Generates particular feedback forms based on the characteristics of an assignment. - It s a stand-alone application. - Can be used by at least 500 honors students - Support at least 15 honors programs - Adjustable, if (user) experience or new insights requires an adjustment - For research purpose the IPR is owned by the organization which uses this tool. When the concept is proven, the tool has the capabilities to be used to support: - the development of students in the regular curriculums; - the development of young professionals; - further research. Page 5 / 13

6 3 Alternatives Within the regular education programs Hanze uses different applications to track the progress of a student. But an application that supports the personal development of a student skills based on different kinds of profiles does not exist. A few alternatives are investigated. All of the alternatives are commercial developed applications and needs expensive adjustments. And, due to the pilot and proven concept characteristics of the project, it does not support the needed flexibility to quickly change functionality. Another issue is, that the IPR of these applications are not owned by the Hanze, which limits the possibilities to change and adjust the applications. Another alternative is the use of a paper based feedback process in combination with Microsoft Excel for analytic calculations. This alternative will cost a lot of coordination, it is not accessible via internet and the process is highly sensitive for errors. Also the requirement The student is owner of his/her portfolio is not met. 4 Conclusions During the project data will be gathered and new insights will be generated which results in required adjustments and changes if flexibility is needed. Considering the limitations of aforementioned alternatives and ICT resources which can be delivered by ICT students of the Hanze, the in-house developed application Feedback monitor is chosen as the preferred alternative. Page 6 / 13

7 5 Implementation The development and implementation of the tool are part of the project Hanze Talents leading the change. The phases related to the development and implementation of the tool are described below. Phase 0 April Sept. 11 Phase 1 Oct. 11 Febr. 12 Phase 2 Febr. 12 Aug. 12 Phase 3 Aug 12 Aug. 13 Phase 4 Aug. 13 Aug. 14 Inventory of customer requirements, the process that needs to supported - Defining the functional and technical design. - Develop Ontwikkelingsmonitor - Into production - System and functional test based on existing profile - Prepare implementation and roll out - Implement excellent professional profile - Start use at five pilot Schools - Validate profiles excellent professional profile - Adjust applications - Start pilot regular education programs - Implement honors teacher profile - Validate profiles honors teacher profile - Adjust applications - Evaluate tool in relation to the project Completed Nearly completed Started Additional to the implementation of the tool in the honors programs and later in the regular education programs, preparation for a research project is started. This research project will investigate the issues and/or challenges regarding the development of young business professionals. When the concept of the Ontwikkelingmonitor is proven, the tool will be used to support this research project by implementing the tool at participating companies. Page 7 / 13

8 5.1 The Ontwikkelingsmonitor In this paragraph a few screenshots are shown of the Ontwikkelingmonitor. The screenshots are screenshots of the test version and will be changed over time. Login screen: After logging, the dashboard tab will be shown. At this tab the latest news and progress of feedback will be shown. This enable the user to define actions or followup on open requests. Page 8 / 13

9 After login, mostly the user will be interested in his progress. Via Progress the user is able to see the results of his latest feedback. Page 9 / 13

10 Via Project the user can be define personal projects to support his personal development plan. Also the assigned projects are listed. To request feedback is an important functionality (and requirement) of the tool. The users is via Request able to send feedback request to different people. First the user select the project he wants to request feedback for, following by selecting the person who needs to give feedback. To support this on an user friendly way an address book is created. See next screenshots. The persons which is requested for feedback receives an containing an messages and a link. Page 10 / 13

11 By clicking the link, an feedback request form is opened. The topics in the form are depending on: the excellent professional -profile which the student is linked to. Each student is linked to one of the defined profile. Depending on the characteristics of the project or assignments all of the defines skill set will be shown of a subset. The request form will be automatically generated by the tool. e Page 11 / 13

12 After submitting the request form the user will see the results via the Progress tab. Page 12 / 13

13 6 Participants School of Computer Science The Combination BV Lecturers, Students of the School of Computer Science Egbert Wiltens (Project Manager Hanze Talents Leading the Change) Page 13 / 13